3. Novi
THREE
Novi
I change into my practice gear with the rest of the team, then wait until they’re all busy and distracted to duck back out into the now clear hall and find an empty corner where I’ll see anyone coming before they’re close enough to hear me.
Then I call my newest friend .
“Novi?” Ezra answers, sounding confused. “I’m not sure if you know this, but that button you hit, it was the Call button.”
I know what the Call button is. I prefer to call people over texting, but I tried it once with Ezra and didn’t get off the phone until two hours later. No one has time for that.
“We are best friends, so you have to help me.”
He laughs. “Now, unclench your jaw and say it again. I don’t know whether to swoon at you calling me your bestie or get turned on by the threatening tone in your voice.”
In the background, I hear Ezra’s partner, Anton Hayes’s voice. “Stop hitting on Novi.”
“Yes,” I repeat. “Stop hitting on Novi.”
“Maybe the two of you should be best friends,” Ezra says.
“Da. Put him on.”
“No, I don’t wanna. Talk to Daddy Ezra. I’ll help you out.”
“Ya ustal.”
“I speak some Russian too, you dick. And it doesn’t matter which language you imply I’m exhausting in, you’re still wrong. Now, spill. Why the call?”
“I’m …” Scared? Cowardly? Pissing in my pants? I quickly glance both ways down the hall before switching the whole conversation over to Russian. “Your friend Westly Dalton was right. The college coach he knows? He’s been introduced as part of our coaching staff.”
“I said I spoke some Russian. There’s some crossover with Polish, which I also suck at but can mostly understand. Slow down.”
I repeat myself.
“ Right. That is … cause for concern.”
I sigh. His Russian is shit, but I get what he’s trying to say, and of course Ezra is sarcastic in every language.
Seventeen years ago, I swore never to mention this part out loud to anyone. I was going to take this moment to my grave, and here I am, telling someone I only vaguely know. “We were in the minors together. For a year.”
“Ohhh … what happened?”
“Nothing.”
He huffs and says in English, “ Novi, you’re a terrible storyteller .”
“I wanted something to though. We were friends and roommates, and I was definitely attracted to him.”
It’s not often Ezra is serious, but this is at least something he gets. “ That must have been hard for you.”
“I think he wanted me too. There was a night in our room where we were drinking and … nothing happened, but something did. I’m sure he tried to touch me, but I freaked out.”
“Shit.”
“And now he’s here, and he knows my secret. How … how …” I can’t even say it out loud.
“Your first step is to take a breath.” Ezra switches back to English. “He’s on the staff. He’s not going to out you. It’s specifically his job to make the team the best it can be, and that doesn’t include ruining anyone’s life.”
“That’s true.”
“Could he talk to Whelan?” comes Anton’s muffled voice.
The thought of talking to Coach has tension filling my body.
“Nyet. I’m not talking to anyone. I haven’t spent my career living in secret for it to all come out now.
It can’t.” I’d thought getting my green card and moving my family from Russia would solve all of my problems, but I’d underestimated one thing.
My eldest sister. She’s a popular TV chef, and she doesn’t want to leave her career or uproot her family.
I can understand it, even if it makes me want to kick something.
But people know her, and people know me, and if my sexuality gets out and she doesn’t publicly denounce me—which is something she bullheadedly refuses to do—she could be in real danger.
I refuse to do that to her. We were close growing up, played ice hockey together as kids, and she came to every one of my games. I ate all her disastrous first cooking attempts, and when she got her license, she’d drive me to the rink at 4:00 a.m. so I could get some extra practice in.
“Maybe you need to talk to this guy, then,” Ezra says. “Make sure he knows how important it is that whatever happened doesn’t get out.”
“Or …”
“Uh-oh. Sentences that start with or never end well.”
I flatten my lips, glancing both ways again. “It was so long ago. Would he really remember?”
“Okay, that wasn’t so bad … Truthfully, I couldn’t pick half the guys I’d hooked up with out of a lineup, but I also never roomed with them for a year.”
“Technically, it wasn’t a full year. I asked to be reassigned right after that night. Told Coach there were cultural differences.”
“Huh. Okay. So you had a moment, and then you ran away from him. Good chance he remembers something like that.”
“He also tried to get me alone after the meeting.”
“He knows. He remembers. You need to talk to him.”
That’s the last thing I want to do. Two years. That’s all I need to get through before I can hide out from everyone. Where I can make sure people forget about Radimir Novicov. “I don’t want to.”
“Then … I don’t know. Scowl at him a bunch. Give him the evil eye.”
“I do not scowl.”
“And I’m not a former fuckboy. This game is fun.”
Unfortunately, Ezra has confirmed what I didn’t want to think about. To get past this lump of nausea, I need to talk to Colby. No, Coach Kessinger. He’s my coach now. Nothing more. Maybe if I can switch my mind to viewing him that way, it will make things easier.
Because while I might need to talk to him, I’m not going to do that.
I’m not going to be the fool who makes a bigger deal out of things than they are. Who hasn’t been able to shake him from my mind all summer. Who doesn’t want to find out anything about him or his partner or family or life.
He’s my past. He can stay there.
“I need to go train,” I say. “Some of us like winning.”
“Or maybe we don’t need to train to w?—”
I show Ezra that I know exactly how to use my phone by hanging up on him.
I speed down the ice, Turkey on one side and Everly, a team hopeful, on the other. Coach Whelan is running drills specifically designed to push us right to the edge and see what we’re capable of because he is, as Turkey says, sadistic.
The ache in my glutes is a welcome relief from the noise in my brain, and I keep my head down as I make a sharp stop and take off again.
I’m one of the fastest on the team, but I’m nowhere near my peak. Slowly, I can feel that things are getting harder, slower, and while I’m still one of the best in the league, I don’t want to be one of those who goes long past his cutoff date.
I’m not going out on a shitty season or an injury. That’s why forty will be it for me. I’m confident I’ll make it, but I know my limits.
Coach’s whistle is a sharp blast. “Alexei, Timbrook, and Ivers. Now.”
I move off to the side and rest against the boards as I catch my breath. Sometimes I push too hard, and the rushing in my ears tells me this might be one of those times, but you don’t get far without a little pain. Like the burning in my lungs.
“You’re … possessed,” Turkey pants. “How can I never beat you?”
“You eat too many cheeseburgers. They slow you down.”
He hunches over, lips pulled back as he struggles like I am. “They’re … my weakness.”
Speaking of …
I accidentally glance across the ice as Col—Kessinger and Ackerman appear. They’re both wearing sweatpants and an LA T-shirt, but one looks significantly better than the other. Ackerman points at where the other three are racing, and Kessinger makes a note on his tablet.
“Think Whelan’s scared?” Turkey asks.
I pull my attention back to him, only for him to nod in the direction I was just looking.
“Rumor has it that Kessinger took Penn State from bottom of the table to champs in one season.”
“That’s a stupid rumor.”
“I heard it from my girlfriend’s cousin who plays there, and he’s not stupid, so …”
I want Turkey to shut up about Kessinger already.
“They called him the play whisperer. Had an uncanny knack for knowing how the other team would react before they did.”
“Sounds like witchcraft.”
Turkey taps his stick against the ice, watching it for a moment. “Also heard he’s gay.” The sudden, intense eye contact catches me off guard. “That won’t be an issue, will it?”
I send my glare—not scowl—Kessinger’s way. It’s only going to be the biggest issue of my life. “Nyet.”
“I’m serious, Novi. Don’t make me have to kick your ass. First, because I can’t. Second, because my mom told me fighting was bad. But third, because I’ll have to do it, and then all my family and probably Coach will get mad at me, but I’m not going to let you be a dick to someone for no reason.”
“There’s a reason.” Kessinger is already making me lose my easygoing attitude that I’m so good at.
“If you don’t want to wear the Pride jerseys or whatever, that’s on you. But Kessinger can’t help who he is.”
“I never said he could.”
“Then lay off.”
That makes me laugh. Well, it amuses me enough to let out a “heh” sound. “You won’t have a problem from me. I won’t even talk to him.”
Turkey sighs, and while I know he’s disappointed in my answers, it’s all I can give him. It feels good, though, in my chest, to know that he’s ready to have the back of a man he’s never met. If things get out about me, I have no fear that my team won’t support me.
That’s not my issue.
“Atatürk. Novicov.”
My skates almost go out from under me. Kessinger has snuck up on us, and suddenly, I’m looking into those gray eyes that always feel like they’re teasing me. Only this time, I know they are.
“You both played well last season,” he says, like he can’t tell my pulse is trying to hammer its way out of my neck.
“Thanks,” Turkey says. “I know Owen Brown from Penn State. He has good things to say.”
“Surprising since he once called me … what was it? Ah. A hack who couldn’t make the big leagues, so now I’m taking my bitterness out on a bunch of twenty-year-olds.”
Turkey’s eyes go wide, and I swear he loses color from his cheeks. “Umm … did I say Brown? No, it was, uh?—”
Kessinger laughs, and I hate that it still sounds the same. “He was one of my favorites. I’ve learned over the years not to take things too personally.”
He doesn’t look at me, but it feels directed anyway.
Then he does look, and that’s even worse. “Novicov, I need you for a minute.”
Shit. Fuck. I don’t think so. “Uh … no English.”
Turkey rolls his eyes and skates off.
Kessinger drops the professional act and looks at me dead-on. “Ackerman wants you. Not me.”
I go to walk off the ice when his arm flies out to stop me.
“But I’m next.”